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Now.
Ayaka doesn’t know what she is doing.
It is just that, well… She is so unsure, and the last thing she wants to be is unsure and impose upon another person who is perhaps also just trying to exist in the chaos of reality. She takes her time getting ready—as a noble lady must, of course—but these days it all feels… useless? Vague? Hopeless?
She doesn’t know why she’s being this way. It’s not like she wants to be lost in her head, but her thoughts… they are so cyclical and morose now. Deep and dark, even—she has not got a single good reason to be this way. She has everything a woman her age could wish for—friends, a support system, an excess of resources, and wealth to fulfil her fancies (not that she has many).
A suitor? She has too many, in fact. They are all perfectly fine—kind sons of noblemen in the city, all perfectly calm and well brought up, just like her. Graceful with a traditional weapon. Knowing of the particular differences between matcha and sencha. But she is floating at the water’s edge like a piece of driftwood. She cannot look at them even if they are so accommodating of her and her distance.
It all started at that festival many years ago… didn’t it? In the wake of the war between the Shogunate and the Resistance ending. She’s been weak since then, she supposes—but she only admits this truth in the dark of the night—not any other time. All other times her head is full of thoughts that shouldn’t be there. But at night… at night she can be truthful with herself.
Kaedehara Kazuha makes her weak. Makes her pathetic. Makes her think things she shouldn’t.
He probably does not even realise it.
She knows anyone would laugh if she dared to say these things aloud—that ronin makes you feel weak? She can almost hear Yoimiya or Thoma say these words to her. He is just being him, you know, they might say. Just the guy who blocked the Musou No Hitotachi once and then tried hiding in the wake of the many rumours that crept up around him. How does he make you feel weak? He just keeps to his small compartment in the Alcor, far away from miserable Inazuma and its miserable shores.
Yes, she can hear these words perfectly in her head. In fact, she can even picture her well-wishers sitting beside her, shaking her shoulders to make her see sense. She cannot.
But they do not know the thing that’s been brewing between her and Kaedehara for the past half decade or so, do they? Or perhaps there is no thing brewing and Ayaka is just adding a delusional piece of dashi to a delusional pot of boiling water. Yes, she’s probably deluded.
She looks at her clipped nails—perfectly befitting of a lady who mastered the art of tachijutsu at the age of seventeen. She looks at the heavy wrought-iron armour on her skirt. She’s being weird. She’s never been like this.
Well… well, until Kaedehara.
She’s unsure about her own head, but she knows the man is not doing this on purpose. Probably. Ayaka is pretty sure he doesn’t mean it… but he manages to make her feel…inadequate whenever they miraculously run into each other. She’s pretty sure… he isn’t doing it on purpose. Right?
It is his easy charm, or probably so. Ayaka is not blind—he has an appeal to many. Well-travelled, wind-worn sailor who was basically a freedom fighter once when he joined the Resistance as a mercenary from the Crux. He possesses an affection for questionable plants and sake—but it only somehow makes him all the more…endearing? It’s not like people aren’t trying to get him to a lonesome corner—oh no, she’s aware they try a lot. He is kind of a celebrity even if he is very private.
But she has never seen him once with another person. Never seen him come out of some questionable nook of the city with his white hair out of order and his salty clothes messed up. No, he maintains a perfectly noble front like the fallen son of a fallen forge that he is. Yes, she looks closely, in spite of her many duties. She looks more closely than she should for whatever reason. She knows she shouldn’t—it’s highly improper. She knows.
How come she allowed it to go on for five long years—and, worse, still does? He comes in like the tide, shifts around everything, then leaves—he keeps leaving; that's his thing as a wanderer—he simply recedes, leaving her alone in the sand that just shifted under her feet. She slipped a long time ago, didn’t she?
He calls her ‘Miss Kamisato’, completely bypassing her ‘lady’ title. (No one else calls her Miss Kamisato—it’s either Lady Ayaka or, simply, Ayaka.) He stands beside her in the quiet aftermath of the Irodori festival as they look at the portraits of Sumizome and Akahito, commenting on nothing at all. They crack open the mystery of the Raiden Gokaden just a bit, and she cannot help but just see the parallels between the exiled Akahito of yore and the downfall of his clan and how the Kamisatos of then had clearly tried helping them, just like Sumizome, but ultimately it led to nothing.
He runs into her in the city when she’s out by herself or maybe when she’s with Yoimiya or Thoma. He doesn’t stay long if she has prior company. He stays a bit too long when she’s alone, just standing by the hanging wisterias near the docks in Ritou, playing one of his plucked leaves. Maybe she really is overthinking. He is just a good friend who comes and goes out of life like the wandering wind he carries in his vision strapped to his scarf. All their meetings are perfectly neutral—he treats her to his haikus, and she treats him to, well, nothing. Her presence, maybe, if she’s being particularly arrogant.
The moonlight is streaming into her room. There’s a reason Ayaka fell into her cynical, cyclical patterns on this lonely night.
Somewhere out beyond the festive lights at Amakane, she knows the Alcor is docked in Inazuman waters. She heard so earlier from one of the Shuumatsuban, just in passing, of course. It’s not like her to send their loyal ninjas out to Ritou just to keep track of ship arrivals and departures. No, they only track these things because who knows when great trading opportunities might present themselves. Of course.
They always meet near the docks. Linger. Then they part.
She never told Yoimiya he makes her weak. Makes her feel pathetic. But Yoimiya—sharp thing that she is—once saw her look into the distance as he had walked away.
“Ayaka, I do not think running after him is going to hurt you,” she had said. “Didn’t you want to give him that old sword forging pattern you discovered recently?”
But Ayaka had not run. No, she simply stood there with her best friend, watching a ronin disappear into the horizon after the three of them shared tea near the wharf. Yoimiya wouldn’t have understood. Probably.
Probably. This is a word she uses often when it comes to Kaedehara. She’s perfectly aware of her inadequacies, thank you.
She doesn’t want to wonder what kind of person Kaedehara is into—if he’s into people at all, that is. Does he prefer tall people who can envelope him or would someone a bit shorter, his height, do? Does he want to be held? Does he prefer men or women or both, like her? She should’ve asked the Traveller when she was last here, at risk of exposing herself entirely. Never mind the fact that Traveller might not have known the answers to these questions anyway. Ayaka simply danced for the golden-haired woman once, her heart full of love for her.
But now she doesn’t carry any such notions. Her crush on the Traveller went away as fast as it came—and it was understandable, wasn’t it? She helped liberate Inazuma when she didn’t have to, so of course Ayaka fell in a bit of love with her. But now… Now she stews in a delusional soup of her own making while Kadehara stirs the pot from a distance, not doing anything to her at all except observing her whenever their eyes catch each other’s across the distance.
She’s vividly aware that in the twenty-five or so years she has spent on Teyvat, she’s got a type: wanderers who parried the Musou No Hitotachi and lived to tell the tale. Yes, that’s her very weird, very specific type that makes sense to no one. Her brother would likely go into shock if she ever said this to him—and why wouldn't he? When he lined up such a perfectly acceptable array of suitors for her—even if it’s more to appease their clan elders and the rigid society they live in, in general?
Kaedehara Kazuha is her type. He’s been her type for a really long time now. She is so stupid.
But here in her room, she can at least admit to her stupidity.
Then.
It is a quiet day—a nice day, in fact.
Out on the docks, she’s just standing with Kaedehara. He’s playing a leaf tune, and she has no idea what it’s called but it feels familiar, like one of her dearly departed mother’s lullabies.
“You’re so calm, like the sea today,” he says then, blowing away the leaf once done with his tune. “How do you manage to hide your beating heart so well?”
It’s a strange question, but they often fall into these vaguely philosophical spirals when they share tea by the wharf.
“Not by using sake,” she says, smiling into her clay cup. They’re supposed to return these to the teashop, but for now, they are just here, looking at the sea and the clouds and the seagulls howling for fish in the winds.
"Alas, I am too rough for you,” he replies, and she feels the sword-forging pattern she tracked down a year ago burn in her skirt pocket. “My hair is too light, and my ways too sailorly after having boarded into Captain Beidou’s good care. I never thanked you and the Commissioner, did I?”
She stills and takes in the last gulp of her tea and pulls away the cup from her lips, her tongue welcomingly bitter. “What do you mean, Kaedehara?”
“I went to this magical archipelago a year or so ago with the Traveller and some other friends, and I think I had a revelation which shouldn’t have been a revelation at all, my lady,” he says, sounding strangely even more quiet than usual.
“What revelation?” she dares to ask, her beating heart now still like her, not hidden at all.
“I know this is coming years late after my initial realisations and I am sorry, but it was the Yashiro Commission that helped me escape Inazuma, wasn't it? That boatman, whom I found oh so miraculously, seemed so scared and let the commission’s name slip. But in my haste I didn’t notice then. He was brave to ferry out a fugitive such as me, someone carrying not one but two visions. And I never thanked you and your family for giving my friend a resting place on your grounds as well.”
She just looks at him for a moment.
For that moment, he just looks at her as well.
“Miss Kamisato, I wouldn't have been alive to face our homeland had it not been for your efforts,” he says then. “Thank you for everything.”
And then the spell is broken. Suddenly, she can once again feel the cold chill her vision strapped to her obi emanates upon the dip of her spine.
She waves him off. “It’s all in the past now,” she rushes. “No need to thank me now. It was our duty to save the last leaf of one of the branches of our commission.”
He smiles then, turning away from her to the sea beyond. “The last leaf…” he murmurs. “You’re one too, aren’t you?”
In a way, yes. What has got into him today? She doesn’t dare to ask.
“I sometimes wish,” he says softly, then.
“What do you wish for?” she asks, her tone equally soft.
“That you didn’t have to hide your beating heart. That I didn’t have to either. But your affection for the sun is too strong… oh well…”
She is surprised she didn’t notice it till now. Or maybe she did and she just didn’t want to address it—she did call out his habit earlier, didn’t she?
“I think you’re drunk off cheap sake again,” she says. “Come, I will buy you another cup of tea to get you out of your mire.”
“As usual, I am again in your debt, my lady,” he replies, letting out a small, light chuckle. It completely upends her fragile ribcage.
Now.
In a way, she knows what is wrong with her, with them—with the concept of Kazuha and Ayaka just existing. But she’s not nearly sure she has figured it out entirely. That strange conversation he once had with her, some three years ago fresh off a voyage to Sumeru, often haunts her, even if he had clearly been drunk throughout it.
He looks at her, she looks at him, and she feels herself to be inadequate for him and his wanderlust. Now, in the morning, the lights at Amakane are not visible—they’ve been kept away because of the sun and its daylight. There’s a pit in her stomach.
The sun, he had said once. She’s been trying to understand his words for three years now. She didn’t dare to ask him even when they continued to run into each other after that strange conversation, filing it away as the ramblings of a drunk, hungover sailor for the most part.
But now the Alcor is once again back in Inazuman waters and her insecurity is hitting her in the worst of the ways it may hit a woman. Yes, it was better to think of his words as a drowsy, hazy chatter induced by cheap sake than the possibility that he perceived her, misread her and chose to close the door. The way she perceived him, misread him and chose to close the door as well.
She thinks she now understands what he meant. Probably.
She should go down to Amakane tonight. Alone, preferably. She cannot look at any more suitors; she cannot look at herself in the mirror. The forging diagram continues to burn her pockets and she is so pathetic. He makes her knees weak. He makes her so weak she becomes delusional. But is she actually delusional? Only the coming evening will tell. Probably.
Archons, she loves that word, doesn’t she? It’s so unbecoming of her as a lady to rely so closely on probabilities and not actual facts but she cannot help herself, can she? Not when it comes to Kaedehara Kazuha. They have been dancing around each other for five long years now—anyone else would have moved on by now, would have laughed and called it a day after the first month. But both of them are too calm to do anything about it.
So throughout the day, she’s on her best behaviour. She goes out to meet a suitor at the Komore Teahouse; she also goes to a Tri-Commission meeting. She even sees Yoimiya as the late afternoon turns to evening. Yoimiya only smiles slyly at her, telling her that there are opportunities waiting to be found at Amakane tonight—mitarashi dango and goldfish in glass bowls. That the summer is here and they are young and free.
Ayaka only laughs. Lies about visiting some other time. Tells Yoimiya she is looking forward to her fireworks show at the close of the festival three days later. Then she returns to her estate, removes her elaborate blue kimono with its breastplate and armour, and changes into something inconspicuous—one of her mother’s old yukatas. It’s worn out and its hem is frayed, with threads spilling out the edges, dark green with large, red camellias embroidered on to it. Somehow she finds an old fox mask stashed in her cupboard—a reminder of some previous festival she once may have gone to. She even does her hair differently for once—choosing to do a braid instead of her signature high ponytail, foregoing the heavy black and golden kanzashi.
Once dinner is done, she doesn't stay to talk with Thoma and Ayato as she usually does. No, instead she politely lets them know she’s going on a walk and that she will be back before midnight.
“Walk out to Amakane?” Ayato says, sipping on his boba tea, almost smirking.
She whips out her fan immediately. “Perhaps,” she says.
“Don’t stay out too late, Ayaka,” he reminds her. “Or I would send Thoma looking for you.”
“Of course, Brother,” she replies, still not lowering her fan. Her brother always knows how to make her flustered in the worst ways possible.
Then she practically sprints out of her home past the guards and past the drag path that leads out to Chinjuu Forest. She walks and runs. She even laughs as she lets the wind whip past her face in her haste. She runs and runs until she reaches Byakko Plains, all loosened up finally, letting the night take her with itself. Her destination lies across the water, now shining again with lights in the darkness. Then on the shore, she slips the mask onto her face and breaks into her Senho cryo form to cross the sea in a whirl of mist and ice.
The sea feels welcoming and cold around her icy form, and when she finally emerges on Amakane, she takes in a deep breath and it almost feels like coming home. The warm yellow lights are shining; there are even a few paper lanterns floating lazily in the air. Her nose catches the scent of fried snacks—the whiffs themselves promising the buyer of a delicious time. She sees the goldfish Yoimiya mentioned and she sees stalls of different festival games.
Cautiously, she ventures into the crowd, adjusting her mask as she does so. The festival’s cosy warmth wraps itself around her form as she makes her way through the crowd, scanning everything surreptitiously. There’s no one here that she really knows, but unlike five or six years ago, she is no longer naive when it comes to navigating crowds and overwhelming situations. She knows how to walk on her own now.
In the distance, she thinks she spots someone from the Crux—she doesn't know his name, but he seems familiar from the docks. A broad and sprawling fellow with a bandana covering his head—she thinks she might have seen Kaedehara talk to this fellow once or twice over the years. So yes, indeed, the Crux crew is here then. And so must be he. Or, probably. If he has not left off to wander on his own again. Right.
Three years ago he mentioned her dedication to the sun. She is not, not really. He belongs to the sea, the shadows, and the wind. The sun shines above them all, yes, but it remains distant. Unlike the sea, the shadows, and the wind, Ayaka cannot touch it. Yes, she knows what he was trying to imply—that not only was she bound by her duties but also by her love for the Traveller.
That drunkard, who needs to be woken up with a bitter, flavourful sencha at the docks, doesn’t know anything about her beating heart, no matter how much he once asked about it. He doesn’t know anything except being noble and cryptic and looking back at her with those forlorn eyes of his.
But he is not there in the crowd on the street, nor is he by any of the stalls. Perhaps, did he take another one of his breaks from the Alcor? He often does that. She has no idea how Captain Beidou tolerates him as an employee. Is he even here tonight? Or has her journey across Narukami been for nothing?
But somehow she did also know before stepping into the lights that he might not be here after all. He is from the sea, the shadows and the wind—unlike the sun, he has much more in common with the moon. So when she turns left and takes a beaten-down path to the shore, she feels the festival’s heat rise into her own bubbling heart.
Out on the rocks rising out of the sand, there’s someone seated by the waves. One of his legs is drawn up, folded at the knee and he’s holding it close with his arms, leaning against his thigh. His other leg is carelessly thrown downwards, touching the seafoam with the edge of his setta. There is a porcelain bottle of sake beside him. Of course.
He is drunk as always. Probably. Maybe.
He doesn’t turn to look at her approaching him from the back, and yet—
“The sun set long ago, Miss Kamisato,” he says into the hollow of his folded arms, his voice muffled by his clothes. “How did this small festival here at Amakane manage to bring you out of your work?”
“My work finished with the setting sun,” she says then, walking closer to him. She pulls off the mask from her face and lets it rest on the side of her head. “Why are you sitting out here? The festival is the other way, you know?”
“I had my fill of it,” he replies. “Then I remembered that I have some sake I pilfered… legally from the Crux. So I thought, why not enjoy this dangerous moonlight out here by myself?"
Legal… pilferage… Trust him to make a weird combination of words. It’s probably the exact kind of thing that leaves people mad for him without him knowing. Then, she notices him looking at her intently from above the brim of his bottle, which he picked up just now. No, perhaps he is knowing, after all. Perhaps Kaedehara is intensely aware of how he can make people mad.
Then his head droops and he turns away, back to gazing at the sea—and never mind—she cannot decide what he is. Still, she walks over to him until she’s behind him. Now they’re close—if she were to lean in just a bit, her chest would touch the back of his head. If he were to lean back, she would be forced to hold his shoulders.
Is it precarious? Probably. Is she playing with fire even though none of them command the element? Absolutely.
Suddenly a huge wave comes in, brushing past his rock and beyond where she stands. As it recedes, it leaves her breathless in the shifting sand, and she barely manages to not slip over and hold him for support. Her yukata’s hem, which had barely dried from the festival walk she did after her sprint in the sea, is now wet and salty again. Now she really is leaning upon the rock, but thankfully she did not catch him for support in her haste. No, she’s now leaning upon the rock with both her palms flattened against it and—
“Are you okay, my…” he whips around and suddenly trails off. What a mistake.
Their faces are so near each other, and at this proximity she can only perceive his panicked, drunken eyes taking in her own wide ones. The sea continues to brush against her; clearly the tide is rising and spilling over, and the sea is so loud. She cannot see anything other than the moon reflecting in his maple-red eyes and the black sky beyond.
His lips are moving. She doesn’t understand. He’s looking at her. Then he blinks. He has very faint dark circles under his eyes, just like hers.
Something shatters inside the hollow of her ribs, and Ayaka leans forward, finding the curve of his silent mouth with her own. As they touch, she sees his eyes become wide for just a fraction of a second before closing, and soon hers close too. She doesn’t know what she is doing, but clearly, he does, for she feels him rotate fully on his rock, sake bottle damned, and then his arms are around her, pulling her down into his corner of the world.
How many times has he done this, she wonders, but her head is so noisy and his chapped lips are so insistent. She can feel his sake seep onto her tongue as he pries open her mouth to breathe her in. Then, she snaps, finally back to herself and she pulls away, her entire being shaken by the last few tidal moments.
When she pulls away silently, the sea is loud and he’s still looking at her. He is always looking at her. She now understands why he doesn't stay in one place for too long.
“I am going to run away now,” she breathes. “Kazuha, I am so sorry.”
The sea is still loud, and she has no idea if he heard her over its roar. She should not care—she did something most unimaginable—really, whatever even came upon her in the past five minutes or so? Had she always wanted to do that? Had she? Had she really? She abandoned all her propriety and sense of self for it.
She turns to her faithful Senho and sprints away from the sea and away from him, her heart beating really loudly in her ears. She needs to go anywhere—just away; she needs to be by herself. She did such a crime just now. She was so coiled before meeting him, so prim, so proper, and then she just…snapped. She went ahead and stole it all away from both of them.
Their nice teas by the wharf that they shared over the past five years. All gone in the heat of the moment. Now she may never see him again. So she just keeps running. It’s all she can do. But then, eventually, she has to come to a halt—maintaining this form is not all that easy, even if she possesses greater-than-average stamina. She’s completely drenched now as well, having run out of her energy in the middle of the wavering sea just as she neared Byakko Plains and its small cliffs.
Ayaka will have to swim the rest of the way, but she’s so tired. Her head is spinning in the middle of the sea and she knows she’s in trouble. She should have been far more careful. Her braid is floating in the saltwater and it’s not midnight yet—so no one is coming to get her, at least not for another hour since she was given that much leeway.
But then, in the inky darkness, there are hands around her. No one other than one person would catch her floating in the sea.
“Ayaka,” he says against the dip of the neckline of her wet yukata, and she feels his lips form the syllables on her nape more than she hears his voice. His hands have wound around her waist and she’s just so—
“Don’t run away from me. Don’t leave me like that,” he continues, lips still against her skin.
She doesn’t know what to feel.
He makes her feel inadequate. He makes her weak. He makes her pathetic. But now he’s here, all around her, and she’s staring into the abyss. It looks a lot like the bottom of a clay cup. But he pulls her slowly to the shore, coming in front of her, his hands still around her waist and somehow her head lands in the crook of his neck where his wet scarf surrounds her face.
At some point the rushing waves snagged his hair tie from him—his white hair is all open and drenched, the same as hers, of course. In the moonlight… she briefly wonders how she looks to him.
Like an unchained creature of the dark? Like a rusted sword? Like a spring coiled in the summertime?
After they collapse onto the sand, for several minutes they just breathe, still holding each other. She has never indulged in anything so wild and now she dragged him into it as well. She’s being so selfish—she knows she doesn’t have any right to impose her own spur-of-the-moment longings upon him.
And yet, here they are, on the sand after a frantic swim across the sea. He told her to not leave him. What’s that supposed to mean? Does he actually, really want her back? Or, probably, he just wants to preserve what she is to him—a familiar face by the wharf. The forging diagram tucked in her obi must be mush now but she cannot do anything about it now, can she?
“I am sorry,” she whispers. “For doing that.”
But he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he just quietly finds her hand and interlaces his bandaged fingers with hers upon the ground. The sand gets everywhere and currently it is prickling her thighs, but she calms herself a bit using the sting of it.
“I am drunk,” he says then. “But don’t be sorry, Ayaka. I had no idea…”
“No idea of what?” she asks, quiet like him. It has not escaped her notice that they slipped into using each other’s given names quite easily.
For a while, he just stays silent, looking down at their intertwined fingers, breathing deeply. Then, he looks up, tilting his face towards her, and speaks.
“That you were living in an eclipse. My head is spinning—”
“Mine is too,” she interjects.
“But the tide isn’t leaving tonight,” he continues. “Stay a while?”
He holds her hand just a bit tighter than before. So stay, she does.
There’s a faded forging pattern tucked in his hakama, and he’s going to buy some jade steel to bring it to fruition. She knows this because she’s waiting for him, her knees still holding up. He joins her, and their hours are spent talking away the silence, sipping tea. Or, probably, just sitting with one another, holding hands.
The sea they fell into together is quiet for once, after all.